Animal trainer Roy Horn said he is recovering well from a near-fatal tiger attack last year and is working tirelessly with the trainer who helped Superman actor Christopher Reeve after a crippling riding accident. "I was almost dead and buried. But now I am better again," said the magician, who was half of the Las Vegas duo Siegfried and Roy, on Wednesday, as quoted on the Web site of Germany's Bunte magazine. "I have the same trainer as Christopher Reeve, and I train nine hours a day with him," Horn told Bunte in his first interview since the attack on his birthday last October. "Spread the good news. You spoke to me, and I am well," said Horn, speaking to the magazine by telephone.

German-born Horn, 59, almost died when his 600-pound male white tiger grabbed him by the neck and dragged him off-stage during a performance with partner Siegfried Fischbacher. Fischbacher said Horn could still not stand up alone but was feeling positive. "He sits in a wheelchair, and sometimes I give him a ride around our garden in the golf cart," he told Bunte from the couple's Las Vegas home.